SNP tuition fee policy ‘making little difference’

Edinburgh Napier University. Picture: TSPL

THERE is little evidence that the SNP’s abolition of tuition fees has encouraged poorer people to go to university or that the UK Government’s £9,000-a-year fee increase has deterred them, according to researchers.

The Scottish Government’s abolition of tuition fees “has not been redistributive in its effect”, researchers at Edinburgh University have found.

England has seen “a slight increase in the proportion of applications from students from poorer backgrounds” since the £9,000 a year tuition fees were introduced, the researchers found in a submission to the Economic and Social Research Council’s (ESRC) Future of the UK and Scotland independence referendum research project.

The Scottish Government says it offers “the best and simplest support package in the UK” but funding packages for poorer students “are considerably more generous elsewhere in the UK”, the researchers said.

The ESRC’s Widening Access to Higher Education report states: “The increase in fees in England in 2010, particularly as reported in the media, increased the perception that university might be ‘too expensive’, and young people from less socially advantaged backgrounds were more likely to be put off from applying as a result.

“However, analysis of UCAS data by the Independent Commission on Student Fees suggests that there has been a slight increase in the proportion of applications from students from poorer backgrounds, accompanied by a decline in applications from mature students in England.

“Interestingly, in Scotland, where there are no undergraduate fees, and in Wales, where the impact of fees is offset by the Welsh Government, there has been no decline in applications by mature students.”

The report states: “The Scottish Government has introduced what it describes as ‘the best and simplest support package in the UK’. However, the amount of funding available to poorer students in grant aid has diminished, and there is very little difference in the overall funding package available to students from more and less socially advantaged backgrounds.

“In addition, funding packages available to students from poorer backgrounds are considerably more generous elsewhere in the UK.

“Scotland has adopted a universalist approach to HE funding, treating all students virtually the same irrespective of family background, but this has not been redistributive in its effect.”

Less than a tenth of pupils in Scotland and England go to private school but they make up over two-fifths of pupils at Oxford and Cambridge and a fifth of pupils at Edinburgh, Aberdeen, St Andrews and Glasgow universities.

Students from professional and managerial backgrounds are much more likely to study in ancient universities, while socially deprived students are more likely to study in universities established after 1992, it said.

“There has been little change in institutional profiles over time,” according to the report.

“The abolition of the graduate endowment in Scotland in 2008 has not led to increased representation of students from more socially deprived backgrounds in universities.

“It is still too early to be sure of the impact of much higher deferred fees in England, but early analysis from the Independent Commission on Student Fees suggests that there has not been a drop in applications from students from more socially disadvantaged backgrounds, although such students were poorly represented in the first place.

“Analyses of the earlier fee increase in 2006 similarly suggested that this did not increase social inequalities in participation.”

Professor Sheila Riddell, ESRC research fellow, said: “Universities and the Westminster and Scottish governments have the stated ambition of widening access. That’s the intention.

“Scotland has been slightly behind England in initiatives aimed at widening access in the past, and it is now placing more emphasis on this issue. But we continue to see students from more advantaged backgrounds over-represented at the most selective higher education institutions in Scotland and England.”

This website and its associated newspaper adheres to the Independent Press Standards Organisation's Editors' Code of Practice.
If you have a complaint about editorial content which relates to inaccuracy or intrusion, then contact the
Editor by clicking here.

If you remain dissatisfied with the response provided then you can contact the IPSO by
clicking here.

The Scotsman provides news, events and sport features from the Edinburgh area. For the best up to date information relating to Edinburgh and the surrounding areas visit us at The Scotsman regularly or bookmark this page.

For you to enjoy all the features of this website The Scotsman requires permission to use cookies.

Find Out More ▼

What is a Cookie?

What is a Flash Cookie?

Can I opt out of receiving Cookies?

About our Cookies

Cookies are small data files which are sent to your browser (Internet Explorer, Firefox, Chrome etc) from a website you visit. They are stored on your electronic device.

This is a type of cookie which is collected by Adobe Flash media player (it is also called a Local Shared Object) - a piece of software you may already have on your electronic device to help you watch online videos and listen to podcasts.

Yes there are a number of options available, you can set your browser either to reject all cookies, to allow only "trusted" sites to set them, or to only accept them from the site you are currently on.

However, please note - if you block/delete all cookies, some features of our websites, such as remembering your login details, or the site branding for your local newspaper may not function as a result.

The types of cookies we, our ad network and technology partners use are listed below:

Revenue Science ►

A tool used by some of our advertisers to target adverts to you based on pages you have visited in the past. To opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Google Ads ►

Our sites contain advertising from Google; these use cookies to ensure you get adverts relevant to you. You can tailor the type of ads you receive by visiting here or to opt out of this type of targeting you can visit the 'Your Online Choices' website by clicking here.

Digital Analytics ►

This is used to help us identify unique visitors to our websites. This data is anonymous and we cannot use this to uniquely identify individuals and their usage of the sites.

Dart for Publishers ►

This comes from our ad serving technology and is used to track how many times you have seen a particular ad on our sites, so that you don't just see one advert but an even spread. This information is not used by us for any other type of audience recording or monitoring.

ComScore ►

ComScore monitor and externally verify our site traffic data for use within the advertising industry. Any data collected is anonymous statistical data and cannot be traced back to an individual.

Local Targeting ►

Our Classified websites (Photos, Motors, Jobs and Property Today) use cookies to ensure you get the correct local newspaper branding and content when you visit them. These cookies store no personally identifiable information.

Grapeshot ►

We use Grapeshot as a contextual targeting technology, allowing us to create custom groups of stories outside out of our usual site navigation. Grapeshot stores the categories of story you have been exposed to. Their privacy policy and opt out option can be accessed here.

Subscriptions Online ►

Our partner for Newspaper subscriptions online stores data from the forms you complete in these to increase the usability of the site and enhance user experience.

Add This ►

Add This provides the social networking widget found in many of our pages. This widget gives you the tools to bookmark our websites, blog, share, tweet and email our content to a friend.